Hunger

Legatum Publishing edits classic works and helps new authors reach a modern, identity-conscious and sophisticated audience. Firmly rooted in our cultural heritage, we look confidently towards the future.

This is an invitation to rediscover some of the best European literary works. After several printed books - and in line with our focus on European history and civilisation - we now publish our first AI-voiced audiobook: Hunger by Knut Hamsun, read by Knut Hamsun and produced by Vox Machina, a Legatum Publishing project.

Hunger is one of the first "modern" novels and is unique in its originality and lack of social and psychological boundaries. Everything is suddenly possible. At one point, the nameless young writer from Hunger sees a man walking with a pair of shoes under his arm: was Hamsun the first surrealist?

Hunger's strongest psychological undertone is the description of the creative process marked by a three-dimensional hunger: biological, existential and creative. The starving writer as a self-eating God. Inventor of words and worlds, sculptor of ideas, painter of cerebral landscapes and composer of nervous vibrations. Art takes over life and no misery is deep enough to be able to prevent the miracle of writing.

Yesterday's still impossible dream is now reality and the voice of the older Hamsun retraces the steps of the young nameless writer through Christiania, the city with thousands of shining windows.

There is nothing artificial and everything is intelligent in this AI-voiced audiobook: hunger, joy, depression, hope, cynical egotism and disinterested love, all the nuances of Hamsun's writing are present in this Vox Machina "interpretation" of Hunger.

The machine played along and, at times, even surprised us with shades of tone that we never thought possible.

Vox Machina, Vox Dei?

The alchemy worked: we combined Hamsun's words with Hamsun's voice and we brought to life a part of Hamsun's spirit.